


Taming the Wilderness and Dying Within

by Heartmony



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Monsters, Survival, Wilderness, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-03-28 11:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13903368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heartmony/pseuds/Heartmony
Summary: Soon, day 2,000 will appear in Wilson's carefully-crafted calendar. Progress? There has been quite an advance, but not enough so that he can find a solution to his problems. Their problems. It seems it has always been them.Survival is not something one has to do alone if they don't want to, but if they have to, then their desire to do so should be strong enough to find a friend. This is what both Wilson and Webber learned during all of their time in the wilderness alongside the others.There is only one word Wilson has to add to his personal dictionary: home.2,000 days without a heavier incident other than just casual droughts or blizzards... Have they completely tamed the wilderness by now? Or is there an unseen threat they still have to deal with?





	Taming the Wilderness and Dying Within

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TizzyBiz](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=TizzyBiz).



Dusk falls, as always; as it has been doing for the past years. There is nothing more beautiful than autumn's twilight, not even the crimson shine of a red gem can compare to that spectacular view, especially if it is witnessed while walking inside a deciduous forest. The birchnut trees' leaves also help to build up that seasonal atmosphere one should need whenever relaxation is desired, but of course, this was no time for a walk at the park. Wilson knows this; he has feared the darkness that follows immediately after for almost five years.

Time flows and it seems it never stops. It is a devious entity that somehow manages to leave its mark everywhere. Wilson's clothes are an example: his black pants present numerous scratch marks, dried stains, and were also slightly torn apart; both his red vest and white shirt were filthy and unwashed; his hair had suffered some loss, making his perfect W-shaped haircut totally ruined; and his right eye... missing. He instead covers his eyehole with a piece of cloth that goes around his head, perfectly covering the opening. Finally, he now carries small traces of his magnificent beard around his chin and cheeks, which he could remove easily with a razor, but given the need of having some extra protection from winter's chilling weather, he has stopped shaving to prepare.

Wilson has always been a man of science; he believes everything can have a solution if it is implemented the correct way whilst researching for the good being of his friends, especially the children they are now teaching to survive and taking care of at the same time. Therefore, he readies himself to deal with any situation, especially those he can directly control. Ever since that day's morning, he and Woodie had been gathering wood to supply the camp. Little did he know at that specific time at dusk about Woddie's whereabouts since the lumberjack quickly sprang into action and headed into the birchnut paradise just as the first ray of sunlight passed through his tent. Of course, since Woodie always gets excited about chopping trees down, Wilson snuck Chester's eye bone inside the wood maniac's piggyback the night before. Wilson only relied on his backpack to carry as much wooden logs as he could before returning to the camp.

Wilson used this time he had alone walking by the deciduous turf to remember, just as he likes to do whenever he has the chance. Chester seemed to invade his thoughts and became the protagonist of his memories. Ever since Wilson saved Chester, both have become inseparable friends, so trusting his eye bone to someone else was a great lend of responsibility from the gentleman scientist. He still remembers that day like it was yesterday: a stormy day in spring at a marsh.

Armed with a log suit and a recently-made, pointy spear, Wilson went alone searching for some tentacle spots for research purposes. The weather was heavily humid and the sweat coming out of Wilson's body mixed with the seasonal downpour. As soon as he arrived at the marsh, things began to get hard for him. He hoped to find merms rampaging against tentacles so that he could just sneak around the battlefield and steal some of the loot that remained from the spotted corpses, and even hopefully snag some fish or frog legs from the merms as they fell. To his surprise, he did hear the merms getting agitated, but no tentacles where visible. The fog that covered the entire marsh suddenly became denser than he had expected, so he had to rely solemnly on his ears. He hoped to feel the ground under his feet crumble, meaning that tentacles where lurking nearby underground, but since there was no evidence of the long monsters being nearby, Wilson knew there was something else causing the merms to become aggressive. He proceeded with caution, spear at hand, ready to counter any surprise he might receive from an unseen monster wandering around. As he stepped further, the noises became clearer and more identifiable: heavy exhales coming from what seemed to be a dog or a hound in a pattern that suggested the source was jumping around while evading the merm mob. Wilson didn't see it coming, but just as he thought of what could have been producing these sounds, a horned, small, pumpkin-figured animal bounced from the ground in front of him and tackled him down. The rain had made Wilson's spear slippery, so it was no surprise that when the impact took place, he let go of his weapon and collapsed with the creature. Wilson's head hit the ground hard enough to make him dizzy, so when he tried to regain his composure, the creature's shape slowly became more visible. It was Chester, breathing heavily with his mouth slightly open and his tongue sticking out of the small gap. As soon as Wilson regained his full consciousness, a mob of angry merms swarmed in front of him; he didn't have to see them completely to know they were approaching, so he stood up, Chester on his hands, and began running towards where he came from. The fog did nothing but stay present the whole chase, making Wilson completely aware of what might be in front of him. This was a mistake. His feet only barely touched the ground for a split second in between steps, which made it dangerous for him to know about the presence of tentacles, until it was too late... A tentacle rapidly emerged from the ground, forcing Wilson to stop dead in his tracks. The giant, purple appendage was right in front of him and the angry merm mob just a few meters away from him, and it was only at this time did Wilson realize he was defenseless. Going around the tentacle was the easiest way out of the situation, but he had already lost so much time. Just as he was a bout to make a move, the tentacle swung itself at Wilson.

Wilson hit his face against a birchnut tree trunk. He immediately reacted and realized he was once again spacing out into his thoughts while he dropped to the ground because of his backpack's weight. This was a dangerous thing to do in this world, since even though he and his friends have been surviving well enough, danger could be around every single corner. Mumbling, he tried to get up, but a recognizable laugh made him stop his movements.

"You never stop daydreaming, do you, Higgsbury?"

He turned his head towards the source of the voice. It was Winona, approaching Wilson at her own relaxed pace with a withered axe on her hand. Her overall was dirty and almost completely overrun by age because of the dirt it always gets stained of. Over the years, Winona has successfully grown stronger physically with the evidence shown on her arms. Her muscles grew bigger than most of the girls out there at the camp, just well enough to help her look a little bit more intimidating. The only thing that she was wearing, aside from her torn overall, was a black blouse covering her torso, a pair of brown gloves and a bandage on top of her head to go with her new hairstyle; a single bang covering the left side of her head and her left ear. She threw her axe on the ground impaling the turfs and remaining completely fixated to them and offered her hand to Wilson. Just a little bit annoyed because of that bitter combination of the slight pain on his face and Winona's words, he accepted her help and stood right back on his feet.

"Is there any particular reason for your presence in this... place?" Wilson asked. His tone grew weaker towards the end of his sentence. He wasn't too sure about the nature of his behavior, wether it was because of Winona's capability of beating down Wilson, although both have become good friends during the past years, or because of the atmosphere both were trapped in.

"Just wandered out of camp. Needed a break. It is sometimes unbearable having to watch that guy 'Maxie' back at the camp, you know?" Winona responded. She seemed relaxed. A bit too much compared to how usually she is around the children. Webber and Wendy can sometimes become too noisy while playing around the campfire at night, but she was right this time on her excuse.

"Well," Wilson replied. "We have been keeping our eye on him ever since we all reunited. I can assure you, given the fact that I'm the one who knows him the best, so if he was planning on something, I'd be able to tell."

Wilson shook himself a little bit to remove any dirt his clothes might have taken from the ground and continued his walk with Winona following at his side after picking her axe back up.

"Any progress on... anything, Higgs?" Winona asked. This question has been dwelling inside Wilson's head for a while now. Approximately three months ago he stopped achieving any further advancements in science as all of his equipment would allow. He just remained thoughtful, so Winona emphasized her question. "Anything? At all?"

"Nothing that can take us any closer to your sister for now, Winona." Wilson replied.

"I see," she added.

Winona was a patient woman. Her primary virtue is that she'd be willing to do anything for the sake of her companions over hers, especially for Charlie. After knowing about the incident back at San Francisco, Winona rushed immediately to the place where Charlie's letters came from to confirm she was still alive and well. After finding out most of the town was left in ruins, she excused herself with the local police to try and find her sister. Thanks to the mail, Winona had enough evidence to show she was in fact the closest familiar to Maxwell the Great's assistant. Due to Winona's petition, the police escorted her to William Carter's apartment building, now almost completely demolished but stable enough to enter, and went up the stairs until they all reached the respective floor. The weird events just became clearer to Winona as soon as she entered the hallway; the temperature seemed to drop quite severely compared to the rest of the building and the outside and it only grew colder as she and a couple of police officers walked her towards the room at the end. The door was completely broken down, so entering wasn't a difficult task, but maneuvering around the place seemed complicated because of a high concentration of debris in the place. Winona swears that by now the temperature reached chilling levels, and winter reminds her of that day with complete clarity. All she can remember at this point from that moment on is that she found a picture of her sister Charlie, wearing her remarkable black dress and rose on her head as decoration, smiling happily at the camera, lying on the cracked flooring. She felt a complete emotional downfall and asked for the police officers to leave the room. After they did, Winona did nothing but remain weak on her knees lamenting the loss of her sister in this chaos. She looked up from the picture and onto the wall on top of the chimney where a picture of both William and Charlie was hung. The look on William's face gave Winona a chill down her spine so intense that the surrounding cold suddenly seemed to disappear. Looking at his eyes was something she wanted to avoid just as she noticed that frame with the photograph, but for some reason, she did not look away at least for a couple of minutes, like if William tried to tell her something. Anxious, she realized what was happening inside her head, so she quickly turned around, grabbed Charlie's picture she found earlier and made her way towards the exit of the room. Just as she was about to cross the door frame, the floor began to crumble. Expecting another earthquake, Winona tried to find something to use as cover, but before she could move, a strange, dark figure appeared before her from the floor. It was tall enough to cover almost the entire height of the room and it seemed as its eyes were missing. The creature stood immobile for some moments while Winona watched speechless and in horror. The floor crumbled once again, but this time, a hand that appeared to be made out of shadows formed next to the tall creature. The hand prepared its grasp to latch on something while Winona tried to evade both entities, but it was too late. The hand trapped Winona with a tight grip and soon engulfed her completely in shadows, making her fall unconscious.

"Still having nightmares at night?" Wilson asked, breaking the silence that had lasted for a couple of minutes. The sun was now halfway through the horizon and the reddish hue became more intense but Winona's expression just didn't seem right to him during the absence of their voices in the air.

"I just can't stop remembering that day. I thought she was dead," she answered. "But no matter how hard I try, I can't really tell what happened next. It just felt... cold. Like I was trapped inside an ice box or something. Perhaps even colder than winter itself."

"That just proves my point on Maxwell tricking all of us into coming here."

Winona's grip on her axe grew stronger and she stopped walking.

"And that's why we should get rid of him," she whispered.

Wilson stopped as well and looked back at her.

"You know we can't do that," Wilson replied. "His presence is just as important as yours, Winona. We can't really get any closer to your sister unless we can completely understand how his magic works. We just need more to figure it out."

"More time?!" Winona yelled. She dropped her axe on the floor in rage. Her expression suddenly changed. "We do not have 'more time', Higgsbury. Charlie is in grave danger, and you're telling me that we can't get to her because we do not know how to read a book? If that fancy-pants douchebag can, then we should be able to as well."

"Yes, we could, but that doesn't mean that I am not fully aware of the consequences this magic can bring to us!" Wilson raised his tone as well. "What if something bad happens to some of us? What about the children? What if Charlie actually succumbs because we committed an accident with magic? This is far more complicated than anything I've seen before, so we should be well prepared shall something might go wrong! I am a scientist, Winona, not a wizard, and magic and science do not really mix pretty well sometimes."

Winona stopped for a second to calm herself down. She didn't want to become that aggressive; it was not her nature.

"You saw her, Wilson. You experienced her current state. Isn't that enough for you to understand?"

"Yes, I do understand," both survivors' volume got lower. "And Charlie is just as important to me as everyone else. If it wasn't for them, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have survived this long. Even William has proved us wrong about himself sometimes."

Winona remains silent. She looks down to her feet ready to shed a tear. Wilson immediately recognized her expression. This emotion has been experimented by everyone at the camp, even Wilson himself. Winona admired Wilson because of his dedication to problem solving and ensuring that everyone else remains safe, and he was right, everyone has contributed to the whole group's survival in their own special way.

"Just don't lose faith," Wilson added. "We'll be back home soon. We'll find your sister, and then maybe she can help us fix some things we need, like Webber. The poor child just needs a cure for his... curse, and maybe some magic used for good purposes can actually bring him back to his human form."

"I guess you could say you're already into it, don't you? Or weren't you the one who lived in the mountains before all of this happened?" Winona joked at the end with a smile while she picked her axe up once again.

There was no need for further conversation after they shared their desired laugh. Relaxation was indeed achieved by Wilson during his walk at the twilight. Now that they're reaching the camp, Wilson's mind revolves around the most important question he makes himself everyday: "What will we be doing tomorrow?" The sun is almost hidden behind the landscape, and the crimson hue of the deciduous forest will slowly lose its brightness at this point. Regardless, even through there's darkness, it seems like having friends nearby makes it all brighter than ever and fear disappears completely.


End file.
